two straight lines

My Little Fireman.  I made him a firecoat out of black and red denim (his requests) to replace all of the el cheapo costumes we have around here, but so far posing for this photo is the only time he has worn it.  Four events down, one more to go.  We'll see if he wears it tonight.

Tower of pumpkins at Hallowe'en at Greenfield Village.

Below are instructions for a very simple window shade.  They are loosely based on a pattern I purchased several years ago—Vogue 1247, a “very easy” pattern.  I love these shades because they are endlessly adaptable, and I have dreamed up so many variations that I have not had the chance to implement. 

Window treatments are so expensive, often because they involve so much fabric, but these use only twice the size of your window (I suppose you could even make them unlined if privacy is not a concern).  These could be made using new or thrifted fabrics.   I have also dreamed of making little window quilts, because I think the stitching would play so interestingly in the light.   There is even the possiblity of embellishing these with appliques or trimmings.

Please email me if you get the chance to make these, I would love to post some on the blog.  Also, let me know if you find any mistakes in this tutorial so I can correct them as soon as possible.

Note: Keep in mind that you need to be able to reach the top of the shade in order to operate it, so if you are short or have very tall windows this could be a problem.

Shade hanging from top and second loops

Directions:

1 Place hooks in the upper corners of your window frame.

Note:
I have used white cup hooks from Target on the pictured window, but there are obviously more creative options here, including decorative hooks or very small knobs.  There is also room to deviate with the placement of the hooks.  For example, if you place another set of hooks half way down the window, you could open the shade from the top down.  You could also place them at even more intervals for greater possibilities.

2 Measure windows.

3 Add 1” to horizontal and vertical measurements to allow for ½” seam allowances.

4 Cut two pieces of fabric to these measurements, one for front, and one for back. 

Note:
The front piece can be made of one piece of fabric, or many fabrics pieced together, but keep in mind that because light shows through curtains, your seams will be visible, so make them as even and neat as possible. 

For the back, it may be best to choose a light non-printed fabric to minimize fading.  You could use a curtain lining fabric, but you could also use thrifted sheets or other used fabrics.

5 Cut out fabric for loops, keeping in mind the design possibilities here. 

Start with one 2” x 30” strip of fabric.  Fold in ½ lengthwise, stitch long edge together (½” seam allowance).  Trim seam allowance to scant ¼”.  Turn and press.  Cut the long strip into six, 5” segments.  Bring ends of each segment together, basting if necessary.

Note: 
The above measurements will make loops that are about 2 ½” long.  Check your hook placement to make sure that that length is adequate to make it from the edge of the shade to your hooks.  Make the loops longer if necessary.

6 Lay shade front flat, right side up.  For loop placement, take the vertical measurement of the shade and divide by 5.  Place one loop on each side ½” from the top of the shade, aligning raw edges of the loop with the raw edge of the shade and pinning. Place another loop 2/5 of the way down the shade, and another 4/5 of the way down (on each side).

Note:
There is quite a bit of room for experimentation when it comes to placing these loops.  The above measurements simply get you a neatly folded shade at the top of your window when fully folded up.  If you placed more loops down each side, you would have greater flexibility in how these can be arranged on your windows.

7 Place shade lining on top of shade front and loops, right side down. (Right sides are now facing with loops sandwiched between)  Pin front and lining together. 

8 Sew around three sides of shade, leaving top or bottom of shade open for turning.

9 Turn shade.

10 Turn the 4th side of shade under ½” and pin.

11 Press shade.

12 Topstitch all four sides of blind as close as you can to the edge (1/4” or less).

13 Hang blind as desired on the hooks.

Note: I will add more photos if the sun ever comes out again in Michigan.

Jack and the Beanstalk Mural

Detail of Bottom Figure

 

I've been wanting to show this mural to you all for a while now, but I never have had my camera with me.  I love the way the modular design can apply to other mediums, like quilting.  There is one more kid way up top, can you see his legs?

It is three stories tall in Kerrytown, Ann Arbor, Michigan.  It was designed in the 1960's by Louis G. Redstone for a mall, and was saved from a wrecking ball and moved to this location.  (Here is a small picture of the whole mural)  This is building houses the farmer's market, a grocer, meat market, fish market, as well as many of our favorite shops.  It is usually a weekend destination for us.

PS- My Nikon D50 is taking really blurry photos even though I reset all of the default settings on the camera.  Any ideas why?
   

This was the last line in my Mom's obituary.  It made a lot of people mad, as if this is the way I wrote it.  Did you know they edit obituaries?  Couldn't they just cut you a break and let you remember your loved one the way you want, and not try and clarify what they thought you meant?  My Mom was one of the hardest working people I've ever known.  She got her first job at something like fourteen selling spud-nuts (potato donuts) in the town where she grew up.  After my parents divorced she put herself through barber school and for the rest of her life she worked like a dog to give my brother and I more than she had had.

She was always frustrated that she didn't make more of herself, in terms of a career.  She had big dreams about what she could have been, had teenage pregnancy not made an appearance in her life.   She became somewhat of a local celebrity as a barber.  In the area of Indianapolis where she worked, she had a loyal following- mostly professional men and young men who looked to her for friendship and guildance.  It was sort of odd having her as a Mom-  in high school I'd go to parties with kids from the local public high school, and boys would swarm about because I was "Debbie Brown's daughter."

When I wrote her obituary, I hard a hard time filling in the blanks on the form provided.  When I got to "occupation" I thought, "can I really sum up what my Mom has done with her life as 'barber?'"  So I chose what I thought she saw as her most important roles-- "Mother, Wife, Friend."  And this is when the diligent newspaper employee stepped in to fill in a word which apparently I did not know-- Homemaker.

We had her memorial ceremony in a the shelter house in our local park, a little stone building where so many of our family functions had been held over the years, on a crisp October day.  To know my Mom was to know that a funeral home is absolutely NOT the place to celebrate her life.  We set out an obscene amount (as she would have said) of desserts and coffee and chatted with those who had shared her with us, many of whom we'd never met.  During the speeches, customer after customer got up and told us the difference she had made in their life--  one man said the only place he and his wife had stopped on the way home from the hospital when their first child was born was to "see Debbie."  Her friends shared similar stories, of times she had counseled them, or shared a kindness.  As family, we soaked it all in, so greatful that others had loved her as much as we did.

Alicia's post yesterday reminded me so much of my Mom.  She and Alicia would have been friends, I think.  Like Alicia, my Mom composed all sorts of vignettes around her home.  Even the things that were stored in the small barn-like garage behind their house were in vignettes.  As I helped sort through her things, I was struck that they weren't sorted as I would have-- dishes with dishes, sheets with sheets.  This should not have come as a surprise to me, as my Mom was the all-time biggest seasonal decorator.  Every minor holiday came with its own set of wares.  If you opened the "late summer" box you'd find white dishes with blue flowers, little wooden raspberries tucked inside a teacup, matching table linens and bakelite flatware.  Seasonal sheets would be padding the box.  As Alicia said, everywhere you looked you thought-- "Someone here cares."

Today is the eighth anniversary of her death, untimely at only forty-eight years old.  I think in the end she was glad that things had happened so early for her- motherhood and divorce, followed by true love and a twenty-five year relationship.  By this age she had seen both kids become adults, and one of them marry.  This was a comfort to her.  This is what she saw as her true profession, although in retrospect I'm not so sure that she got her "career" wrong.  She possessed the skills to do something she would have found more satisfying, but she clearly had a talent for the path she chose, even if the value she added had very little to do with haircuts.  I think in the end, the newspaper may have gotten it right.  Maybe she was a homemaker.  Yes, I think she was.

I finally went through my huge stack of Kona Solids and labeled them with laundry tape and a pen, because up to this point I could not allow myself to touch them...what if I get them out of order and can't tell the honeydew from the kiwi?  I then picked out my favorites along with some vintage fabrics I've been collecting so that I can begin my Denyse Schmidt inspired throws and pillows for my family room.  The bracelet is just a pretty little thing I picked up for myself last weekend.  I wish I could find some sort of houseware that looked like that- robin's egg blue plastic carved with flowers.

Also in the works, I hope to put up a tutorial for my simple shades in the next week or so.  There has been a lot of interest in them, and I would see what other people come up with, so I will post the instructions soon.  I am also working with our coop pre-school to switch to non-toxic cleaning products.  They seem very receptive to it, so that is a big relief.  The more research I do about the current cleaning product they are using, the more frightened I get.  The manufacturer's website says it is not approved for food surfaces, yet we clean the tables with it minutes before the kids eat.  Scary stuff.  Can we just stay in our house and never go out?  For more info on non-toxic institutional cleaning products, look here.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while may remember a few pictures I posted during Color Week a while back of our nursery.  You can find them here and here.  This is another view of that room, one of my favorite corners.  It is a very peaceful spot, the colors are soothing, and I have a lot of memories of holding my son during long nights in that white chair- although not in this room, we didn't move here until he was 18 months old. 

Above the chair is a butterfly mobile he absolutely loved as an infant, framed behind the chair are two drawings that I made in elementary school that my Mom framed for me (actually three-- one of the frames is reversible, there is another image if you flip it over).  The little orange (not red as many of you thought) table I found at an estate sale at a stately old house in Minneapolis and painted with layers and layers of paint until I loved the color.  The white quilt which many of you wondered about was NOT stitched by me, but picked up really cheap at Marshall's.  The window shades are from a simple pattern which I have adapted and made several times.  They are pieced on the front, lined on the back, and have loops along the sides so you can adjust the height.  They have been awaiting some embellishment for about  a year, but haven't gotten to it just yet.  And finally, the little quilt on the back of the chair I finished just before Elliot was born during a "non-traditional quilt" class I took at the art center in Maplewood NJ.  The pattern was meant to represent the fields of crops I always saw flying home to Indiana.

[phew- that's a ton of info, but I got a lot of question about the room]

The illustration I did the other day will go in this room, and besides that and the frames you see here, there is not artwork hanging yet.  I am working out a plan as my pregnancy progresses and am thinking of doing something like this (scroll down to the tree) on one wall.  Anyone have any idea how you would secure paper to the wall so a baby couldn't pull it off, without ruining the drywall when you remove it later?  Wallpaper paste?

That's it for now, just a tranquil corner of our house.

Here's a little fabric illustration I did this past Sunday, an assignment from Elliot's pre-school teacher to create a square for a paper quilt representing your family to be displayed for the year on a bulletin board in the classroom.  They were to be embellished with whatever materials you wished, so I chose fabric because I love it so, and have for a long time wanted to try my hand at a fabric illustration.  It was so freeing knowing it should be childlike, so I composed it in about 20 minutes, although the construction obviously took longer.  I originally wanted to photoshop images of us in the windows, but couldn't find suitable photos, so opted for clipping out faces from some paper doll fabric I have from years ago.  Elliot helped me pick out the faces, which was pretty much his only involvement in the project (bad Mommy!).

I highly recommend this type of project for adults and older children, so fun and gratifying.  The final copy can be scanned or photographed and printed for multiples (I ended up sending a paper copy to school, and this copy will be hung in our nursery.)

There is a weath of inspiration out there from Maria Carluccio, who many of you may know from her work with Land of Nod (check out this mural over at Port2Port inspired by Maria's alphabet artwork) to Natasha Rosenberg (and she is super sweet to boot.)  There is also a great book which I bought a few years ago called My Paper Memory Quilt: A Family History Pack- which is illustrated by Maria Carluccio and written by Bill Zimmerman.  Included in it are worksheets for creating collaged squares which could become a paper quilt.